FIR

by Monabi Mitra

  Half an hour later, Bikram pulled up before a sleek high-rise and took the lift to the third-floor apartment which served as Geo Sen’s chamber. A young and pleasant secretary smiled at Bikram and offered him coffee or cola, while Dr Sen was seeing his last patient. She was as well-fitted out as the room in which Bikram was made to sit. This was clearly a private antechamber for important guests. Outside, there was a less imposing waiting room for lesser men and women, with plastic chairs and obscure medical journals.

  The doctor was a prosperous man of fifty, immaculately dressed, his checked shirt bearing the crest of a well-known brand. He stretched his hands in warm greeting as he came out of his room. He waved Bikram into a chair, took a seat beside him, insisted on serving coffee and finally leaned forward confidentially. ‘Is there going to be trouble?’

  ‘The manner of his death might be suspicious.’

  ‘It was Sudip, I believe, who refused to give a death certificate. Excitable chap. But solid, I admit. One of my best juniors, though perhaps, in time, he’ll learn to handle things better. Had I been here, I might have talked him out of it …’

  ‘Had you been here, he would never have gone there, I’m sure. You would have been the one to examine the dead man and perhaps you would not have gone into all this. Perhaps you would have been careful to be careless, if you know what I mean.’

  Bikram looked into the shrewd pair of eyes that were sizing him up. The doctor, without averting his gaze, said: ‘It would be useless to pretend before you, Bikram. I think you know how it is with us. Ethics versus reality, and sometimes there are rich families whom it would be fatal to annoy. We all have our … um … business interests. In that sense, policemen and doctors are so alike.’

  ‘Then we understand each other well, Dr Sen, and I would appreciate honesty from you. You have been a close friend of the family’s and will know much about them. I’ll be frank with you. This is still a preliminary investigation because the autopsy report has not come through. Once that happens, the press will jump on to it and all kinds of juicy stories will make the rounds. It would be good for those with close links with the family to tell us all they know so that the investigation can be got through quickly before too much of excitable investigative journalism hits the papers and all kinds of probes are made.’

  Bikram looked stony but inwardly held his breath. It was a gamble, of course, to hint that he knew the doctor and Nisha Bose were more than good friends. Were his opponent to refuse to play the game, to tell him to leave, he would have no option but to do so. But this man was clever enough to distance himself from the wrong people at the right time; he might take the chance offered.

  For a while Geo Sen said nothing. Damn it, thought Bikram, I’ve bungled it. ‘All right,’ said Geo Sen finally, ‘I’ll tell you something of what I know. Not everything but some of it. The problem they had was the house. Robi isn’t really the sole owner of the house, you know. It is a joint property on which an uncle and his daughter also have claims. The uncle was always timid and couldn’t keep pace with Robi’s mother, a smart lady who gradually took over the whole household after her marriage, so the uncle took his family away to a small house in a middle-class neighbourhood. But he’s still got a valid legal claim. Following his stroke, Robi used to fret that after his death the family might move in and try to stake their right. I told him this was impossible, they would never be able to bulldoze in like that, and anyway, Nisha has an equal claim, but he wouldn’t listen. He would spend hours planning and plotting to buy the cousin a flat somewhere and make her relinquish her claim or make over her inheritance.’

  ‘Did that worry him so much that it affected his health? Could he have had an attack for instance, by working himself up?’

  ‘Well, he used to brood about this all the time. I think, in a way, it was a kind of a release for him. You see, he was in the prime of his life when he had the stroke and so, when he recovered enough to be able to lead a semblance of a normal life, he found he had nothing to do. And so he took up this cause as a way to pass the time, and gradually the cause overpowered him and consumed him, till he could do nothing but think of his death and Nisha’s property claims. It was frightening to hear him go on and on about it, sometimes.’

  ‘This cousin, were they on good terms?’

  ‘Nisha was very good to her, and tried very hard. I think she used to feel guilty about the way Robi’s mother had treated that half of the family and tried to make amends. The girl is unmarried, by the way, and Nisha used to ask her over so that she could meet people, you know, in case someone got interested in her. Robi too was fond of her, in his own way. They had been playmates as children and that friendship endured.’

  ‘Did they make any settlement, finally?’

  ‘I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Nisha, though it will be very awkward for me if you tell her I briefed you.’

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about the family?’

  The doctor took a deep breath. ‘Not really.’

  Was it his imagination, or was the doctor looking nervous? When Bikram passed on to the next question there was a palpable slackening of tension in him.

  ‘Any trouble with the servants?’

  ‘As for that, you will have to ask Nisha. I can’t really be expected to know what she said to the dhobi and how she talks to her cook.’ The doctor leaned back and looked at his watch.

  Bikram pretended not to notice his manner. ‘But there is one servant who was very close to Robi Bose, a kind of Man Friday, Buro, I think, was his name. Do you think he could have had anything to do with the death?’

  ‘You’ve done your homework well, I see. You know the name too—Buro! I’m impressed.’ The doctor shrugged his shoulders. ‘It could have been him, of course. Servants are the usual suspects. Tricky creatures, hanging around the house, learning about everything. Has anything been stolen?’

  ‘Not that night, no.’

  Bikram waited for the obvious query, but none came. The doctor looked at his watch again. So he knows about the money being stolen before that, thought Bikram. Possibly he may have advised Nisha Bose to take the help of the police. He probably knows about my visit too. Which means he’s still her lover. He wondered idly where they met to make love. The doctor must have a flat tucked away somewhere! The wife must know, as all wives usually do. And the doctor must know loads more about Nisha Bose than he had let on.

  ‘One last question. Did they have any children?’

  ‘Of course not, you know that.’

  ‘But you didn’t advise them any treatment?’

  ‘Of course I did. I even fixed them an appointment with a specialist years ago, that’s how I got to know them so well.’ He paused, and then said, ‘It’s been hard for her, very hard. No children, and then Robi’s attack, and now this!’

  Sensing there was nothing more to be got out of him, Bikram rose and took his leave.

  ‘You can give me your phone number. I’ll let you know if I remember anything else. Keep me posted on what’s happening.’

  They walked to the door together. ‘Good to see you, Mr Chatterjee. It’s good to see handsome and upright men like you in the force. I’ll tell Toofan the next time I meet him how impressed I am with his men.’

  He shook hands warmly, puckered his lips into a mischievous smile and waved gaily as the lift doors hummed close.

  8

  Robi Bose’s death had hit the newspapers, travelled from front-page headlines to the Metropolitan section, led to speculations on police apathy and the breakdown of law and order, fuelled related articles on the changing role of domestic help in an era of globalization, and the need for police reform in twenty-first-century civil society, and finally dwindled to a few lines on the inside pages. During the first few days, Toofan Kumar had feverishly briefed the press on important leads, valuable clues and impending arrests. Because he was talkative and indiscreet the reporters loved him.

  Every morning, Toofan Kumar reached for
the morning paper and put it down some five minutes later, hysterical. He would then spend fifteen minutes hunting down Bikram, Ghosh and Chuni Sarkar and giving them a mouthful of the choicest. Ghosh grew sweatier and Chuni Sarkar drank an extra peg each night. Bikram became increasingly taciturn. He stood aloof during procession and demonstration duty, listened to complaints disinterestedly, abandoned raids and round-ups and took no notice of the fact that Mistry often came late to work.

  The intervention of Prem Gupta, however, brought in the post-mortem report quickly enough. The report was as expected: Robi Bose, forty, male, suffering from cerebral thrombosis, dead, with diluted pupils, discoloured fingertips, no marks of ligature on the neck or injury elsewhere, but with congested lungs, stomach, liver and spleen. In short, Robi Bose had died due to the effects of oral consumption of toxic substances. Though the complete report remained pending till the arrival of the full report on preserved viscera, there was no doubt that there was a large amount of painkillers and tranquillizers inside him, taken within a short time of alcohol consumption, that had caused nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, coma and death. Whether he had consumed the stuff accidentally or with intent, and whether the intent was his own or someone else’s was, of course, another matter.

  The autopsy itself was a wholesale overturning of all the textbooks of pathology ever written. The morning of the autopsy, Bikram summoned one of his constables. ‘Haldar, you are to accompany a corpse to the Katapukur morgue. I doubt if anyone from the family will turn up except the servants. No gossip, please.’

  The constable’s stomach rumbled. Morgue duty! Shit! Thank heavens he hadn’t eaten!

  ‘Here’s money to buy some plastic cans for the entrails. Don’t forget the salt. You might have to help make the salt solution for the organs yourself, so keep your mind on the job. This case is important.’

  The constable shifted uneasily. How the hell was he to get the morgue attendants to work? Everyone knew that the doctor, supposedly in charge, did nothing except breeze in at the end, if at all, and sign the papers. What if the corpse-carriers—the doms as they are known in Bengali—refused?

  Bikram looked at the constable’s expression and smiled inwardly. Poor beggar, the guy still looked flummoxed. He put his hand into the bottom drawer of his table and drew out a parcel wrapped in a large government of West Bengal envelope that clinked mysteriously—liquor seized from gambling dens, saved for occasions such as this.

  ‘Argue for a while before handing it out, and don’t let them get at the whole thing before they finish the job.’

  The constable smiled in relief. A whiff of whisky would bring the attendants running. He would give them a swig each, of course, or they would never begin cutting the corpse, and then distribute the rest once the viscera were safe in his possession. An enormous load was lifted off Haldar’s mind. If the stuff was good, he might have a bit himself. Not on duty, of course, but conceal it in a PET bottle and savour it in the barracks at night. God knows he would need it too, just to get the smell of the morgue off him.

  Haldar looked around him as Robi Bose was carried inside. Robi was lucky. The rest of the corpses—the ones from the slums and the suburbs, the unidentified ones from the construction sites and the railway tracks, with burnt faces and protruding tongues, ghastly eyes and swollen stomachs, dismembered limbs and lacerated chests, lay sprawled in cycle vans or open trucks.

  ‘Not today, come tomorrow, can’t do any more today, power cut, no generator.’

  ‘Please, he’s been dead for four days, I need to bury him and get back to work.’ The young woman cried out in despair as the attendant pushed her away.

  A thin man wearing a hanky knotted around his neck like a scarf sidled up to her. ‘Psst! Five hundred bucks and I’ll get it done.’

  ‘I don’t have so much.’

  The woman was crying. Her sari was torn and she was wearing rubber sandals, the heels of which had been ground down to paper-like thinness. The sun was climbing higher in the sky and the smell was getting worse. A pack of dogs, waiting greedily, found a bloodstained shirt and began licking at it and fighting amongst themselves.

  ‘Four hundred, then.’

  The woman, still sobbing, shook her head. ‘I have to pay the van driver and the cemetery and the boys who will accompany me. I don’t have that much.’

  ‘Sod off.’ The thin man kicked at her husband’s corpse, sprawled on a rickshaw, his knobby legs dangling stiffly from the side.

  The woman, still sobbing, turned to Haldar and, seeing his uniform, said, ‘Help me, make him see sense, I don’t have that much money.’

  Haldar felt his stomach lurch. ‘Take a hundred and be done with it,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘And who are you to dictate my terms?’ The thin man turned upon him insolently.

  Haldar gently shook the bag he held till the bottles clinked. The man’s face cleared. ‘Oh ho,’ he said softly. ‘Whisky?’

  Haldar nodded.

  ‘Foreign?’

  ‘Yes, but only if you get her husband done for a hundred rupees. And I can’t give you all of it, just a plastic Pepsi bottle full, but it is solid stuff.’ Haldar was a sensitive man and, in a moment, had willingly relinquished his share to help a widow with a four-day-old corpse.

  The thin man nodded and the deal was sealed.

  Meanwhile, Robi Bose was being dismembered inside. An unwilling doctor entered the room. The windows were shuttered, the room reeked to high heaven and rats skittered about on the floor. The doctor found Robi Bose sprawled on an aluminium tabletop with a naked bulb hanging over him. He slit him open and unceremoniously tipped out the lungs, the heart, the stomach, the intestines, the kidneys and the liver on to a trolley. Meanwhile, the morgue attendant, surreptitiously primed with the whisky sent by Bikram, took something resembling a small hammer and fiddled around Robi Bose’s skull. Snap! The skull cracked open. The doctor bent forward peevishly and muttered something, then muttered some more, cast a quick look at Robi, or what was left of him, and then nodded his head. It was over. The morgue attendant took a huge needle and hastily trussed up the body again.

  ‘Next,’ said the doctor, with some effort, trying to achieve the impossible task of simultaneously holding his breath and speaking. Robi Bose was then unceremoniouly slid on to the floor. From there, he was pushed onward to the ‘Out’ gate. And thus life described a full circle: Robi Bose, member of country clubs, guest at Marriott’s and Hilton’s, user of Gucci and Armani, lay on the floor amidst the rats and the dogs, with only Haldar the constable waiting outside to deliver him home.

  Bikram sat in his office two days later with Ghosh on one side and Chuni Sarkar on the other. All three looked unenthusiastically at the task ahead. These were difficult times. A gang of credit-card cheats was busy on the southern fringes of the city, posing as courier men and robbing unsuspecting housewives. Another gang, specializing in motorcycle thefts, was ravaging the business areas at midday. The municipal elections were half a year away which meant that politicians were busy inaugurating flyovers and community bathrooms, and much of the police force would be whizzing up and down with them. All they needed was a first-class juicy homicide.

  ‘I suppose we’ll have to work out a scheme now,’ said Bikram gloomily.

  No one said anything. Ghosh scrabbled at his belt and Chuni Sarkar’s shoulders drooped. The clock chimed eleven in silvery tones.

  Bikram reached out for the original complaint, filed on the night of 9 April at 0320 Hours, and read it through again. Then he read through Chuni Sarkar’s report on the preliminary investigation made on the night of the death, including the finding of the empty medicine strips in the rubbish bin. He pushed the file towards the other two and pushed his own chair back, looked up unhappily at the ceiling, and closed his eyes. There was a rustle of paper as Chuni Sarkar and Ghosh found things to do.

  Finally, Ghosh cleared his throat. ‘Since no suicide note was found there, he might have killed himself without writing on
e.’

  ‘That would serve our purpose very well, I know, but there’s the matter of the party,’ said Bikram dourly. ‘His wife insisted he had been in high spirits that evening, especially that evening.’

  ‘Five or six guests, if I remember correctly,’ said Chuni Sarkar.

  ‘Did the servants say whether anything about the party was unusual?’ asked Bikram.

  ‘Not a hope, Sir! Apparently they have a party a week, and this was no different from any other.’

  ‘Who cooked the food?’

  ‘Some of the snacks had been done at home and some came from outside. The main meal had been done by the maid and that jack-of-all-trades servant they have, Buro.’

  ‘And yet nothing was stolen,’ said Ghosh. ‘So, if the servants did it, why kill him unnecessarily, and that, too, a man who would have died any day.’

  ‘But didn’t,’ said Bikram. ‘He was proving amazingly resilient.’

  ‘They are like that, too,’ said Ghosh darkly. ‘The ones who are confined to bed and are expected to burn out any day just keep going on and on.’

  Chuni Sarkar said, ‘There was a cousin there that night, his paternal uncle’s daughter, along with her father and mother. She had been to see him a few days before and they had had an argument. Property matters, I think.’

  ‘What is she like?’ asked Bikram. Members of that family could only mean trouble.